“Mother…FUCKer!” Donkey, Club President of the Turkey Vultures, East Bay Chapter, pounded his fist against his desk as he slammed the phone back in its cradle.
Zelda, Donkey’s wife and the official Club Secretary for the Vultures (because none of the men wanted to be a secretary), looked up from last month’s People magazine, pulled a lipstick-smeared menthol cigarette from between her ruby lips, blew smoke out of her left nostril – the right one being thoroughly plugged – and screeched in her nasal voice, “What’s the matter now?”
Donkey was hysterical. He was shaking with rage, bunching his fists until his nails dug into his palms, seemingly on the verge of an epileptic fit. Veins stood out on his huge neck and his huge normally-red face grew darker and darker, coloring toward the shade of a varicose vein. A crazed giggle seemingly snuck its way up his throat and between his clenched teeth.
Zelda rolled her eyes and shook her head slightly in apparent annoyance with Donkey’s reaction. Then she continued to stare at Donkey, waiting for a response to her inquiry.
Donkey walked slowly in a circle, stomping his feet, shaking his fists and howling at the ceiling. He began chanting, quietly at first, slowly increasing the volume until he was roaring, “Mother. Fucker. Mother! Fucker! MOTHER!! FUCKER!!”
Zelda resumed smoking her cigarette, still staring at Donkey, a modicum of resignation having crept into her expression, tapping her foot unconsciously in time with Donkey’s chanting.
Donkey fell to his hands and knees. He began pounding the floor with his palms, howling incoherently. After a few minutes, he stopped beating the floor and stared down quietly at the spot between his sore hands, his head slumped between sagging shoulders, his knees aching against the hard floorboards.
“Are you done?” asked Zelda, knowing he wasn’t, but hoping beyond hope that he was.
As if prompted by Zelda’s question, Donkey fell over on his side and curled into a fetal position, then began kicking his legs like an insect trying to turn itself right side up. From this position, he kicked the chair that sat in front of his desk, knocking it over and into a pile of folders stacked next to his desk. Papers spewed from the folders across the floor.
Zelda looked at the chair and the file of papers and decided she’d had enough. “Don!” She spoke his name with a short, clipped bark that would have made any drill sergeant proud.
The effect was immediate. Donkey stopped his kicking and lay still. He felt an urge to jump up and salute Zelda, but he didn’t want her to know that, so he simply lay still on the floor for a moment, as if trying to decide whether to get up.
Zelda came and stood over him, with her arms folded in front of her, a look of anger tightening her weatherworn features. Looking down on him, she said sternly, “Now what in the hell is all this childish bullshit about?!”
Donkey stroked his beard thoughtfully for a moment. A look of surprise crossed his face, as he looked up at Zelda and said, “I’ll be honest; I don’t actually remember.”
